Boreal forests are undergoing rapid environmental changes that impact ecosystem water fluxes. Bryophytes (mosses and their relatives) can cover forest floors in these systems and are a key component of water cycling. However, little is known about how coarse- and fine-scale variation in structure interact to affect these fluxes. Previous research has demonstrated that roughness due to structural heterogeneity of the bryophyte canopy (0.01 m scale) affects the conductance of water to the atmosphere. In the field, the effect of such roughness may depend on the local position along the microtopographic surface (variation at 0.1-1 m scale). Identifying the interaction between canopy structure and the microtopographic location of the vegetation will facilitate the development of quantitative models of water fluxes in boreal forests. To better understand how the canopy structure and microtopography interact, we fabricated Dicranum scoparium shoots into smooth and rough canopy structures (n=3). Water loss was measured in a wind tunnel under five different wind speeds and at four topographic positions on a surface modeled as a sine wave (height 8 cm, period 1.1 m, dimensions based on the field structural dimensions). The four sampling locations were in the valley and on the windward side, leeward side, and crest of the hill created by the sine wave. Results show that canopy variation of the bryophyte plays a minor role in conductance compared with differences in the microtopography of the local area. There is a significant difference (p<0.001) between the average conductance to water loss among the four assigned topographic positions. The overall mean conductance was 4.2 cm/s and was 65%, 21% and 53% higher in the windward position than in the valley, crest and leeward positions, respectively. However, conductance did not differ between rough and smooth canopies. Consequently, when the canopies form along a surface with microtopographic variation, local positioning affects water fluxes more than surface variation due to canopy structural heterogeneity. As a result, water flux models of boreal forests should work to incorporate the effects of microtopographic variation in the forest floor.